Serena Williams ended Johanna Konta's title aspirations with an impressive 6-2 6-3 win in the quarter-finals of the Australian Open.
Williams is bidding to win her 23rd Grand Slam title, and her seventh at Melbourne Park, and she brushed aside the challenge of her opponent in 75 minutes to set up a semi-final meeting with Mirjana Lucic-Baroni.
Konta made a bright start to the match and as Williams struggled with her first serve the Briton had an opportunity to break in the third game, only for the American to hold with an ace.
Having finally found her rhythm Williams broke Konta and she went on to dominate the first set.
Things appeared ominous for Konta at the start of the second when she found herself 0-40 down in her opening service game, but she managed to save all three break points before breaking herself to take a 3-1 lead.
However, she would not win another game as Williams won five on the bounce to reach the last four.
"She's been playing so well," Williams said of Konta. "She won Sydney, she's been cleaning up her matches - I've been in the locker room watching her win, I've been like, 'Gosh she's doing so well'.
"She's a future champion here for sure so I'm pleased to get through that.
“My first serve wasn't really great, but I've really been working on my second serve. Hasn't been great all tournament.
“I've been kind of relying on my second serve. Also my whole game. I've been relying on my groundstrokes, forehand, backhand. My returns have really picked up.
“All around, I feel like she's a great all-around player. So I feel like I had to be on it all around today.”
Williams faces Lucic-Baroni in Thursday's semi-final with the Croatian holding a 2-0 head-to-head advantage, but both of those meetings came in 1998 and the American is looking forward to the encounter.
“She's playing really well. I think it's so important not to underestimate anyone. This has been coming for her for a long time. She's been wanting to win Grand Slams and to do well,” Williams said.
“I think it's so important for me to just stay focused and hopefully play well. Hopefully I'll be able to get a win. I'm here to win. I'm here to do the best that I can.
“Yeah, so hopefully I'll be able to do well.”
Lucic-Baroni's fairytale run continued as she overcame fifth seed Karolina Pliskova 6-4 3-6 6-4.
It is 18 years since the 34-year-old last reached the semi-final of a grand slam but she has been in stunning form in Melbourne and she produced another upset by disposing of Pliskova.
After taking the opening set and moving a break up in the second, the momentum was certainly with the Croatian, but a medical time-out for Pliskova swung the momentum in her favour.
Pliskova broke for a 4-3 lead and she went on to level the match and take it to a deciding set.
They traded breaks in the third before Pliskova held for a 4-3 lead but once again the momentum swung in Lucic-Baroni's direction after she called a medical time-out for a troublesome thigh.
After the restart she won nine straight points and then broke Pliskova to wrap it up.
“I know this means a lot to every player to reach the semi-finals but to me this is overwhelming. I will never ever, ever forget this day or the last couple of weeks,” Lucic-Baroni said.
“This has truly made my life and everything bad that happened, it has made it OK.
“Just the fact that I was this strong and that it was worth fighting for, it’s really incredible.
"I can’t believe this, this is crazy. All I can say is God is good … I’m in the semi-finals again. I’m a little bit in shock right now.
“One day I will say a long, big story about things that happened to me but I never could dream about being here again.”
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